Task editor, career, and single missions

[LukeFF]

If you entered "FT-9840" on the screen, then it's working as intended - the tail section is only ever meant to show the first three digits, i.e., the 984 part. The last slot after 984, the 0, is a bonus, so to say. It's not meant to show up on the tail section, ever.

[Mark_Krieger]

Gunsight button cage/uncage animation in F-51D doesn't work since patch 0.003.

Edit: I was confused with the microphone button.

Edited July 23 by Mark_Krieger

[Mark_Krieger]

In most of the missions of the career with the F-51D we are intercepted by flights Mig 15s very near to the frontline in parallel 38 and far south from the Mig alley in the first days of the campaign. For what I have read, Mig 15s had forbidden to fly south of the line between Wonsan to Pyongyang and that their operation zone was in the north-west region of North Korea, near Yalu river and chinese bases. Is this really realistic? Shouldn't we be intercepted by Yak 9p or La-11 instead?

Anyway the IA is quite inefective with the Mig 15 against slower targets like the F-51D and they don't represent much danger because they constantly overshoot. 😅

Edited July 22 by Mark_Krieger

[AEthelraedUnraed]

10 hours ago, LukeFF said:

If you entered "FT-9840" on the screen, then it's working as intended - the tail section is only ever meant to show the first three digits, i.e., the 984 part. The last slot after 984, the 0, is a bonus, so to say. It's not meant to show up on the tail section, ever.

With all due respect, but in that case the "working as intended" is wrong. Or at least, unhistorical. The tail section is meant to show the last three digits, not the first three.

The serial number of the F-80C follows the general pattern "YY-1234" where YY are the last two digits of the year, and 1234 is a sequential number from one of eight blocks. The tail number either follows the serial number, or, noting that the first number of the sequential section is often 0, shows an abbreviated version "Y234" where Y is the last digit of the year (7, 8 or 9) and "234" the last digits of the serial number. In other words, the tail number consisted of either four or, more rarely, six digits. Never three. The buzz code by the time of Korea consisted of the aircraft code FT followed by again these last three digits. Never four.

The number assignment in IL2 follows the general pattern "AB-1234". This pattern results in the three-digit tail number 123 and the four-digit buzz number AB-1234. Neither are historical. Leaving the "bonus" slot empty as you seem to propose still results in the unhistorical three-digit tail number 123.

What I propose, is to move the first buzz digit to the tail, so that "AB-1234" would result in tail number "1234" and buzz number "AB-234". Note that in this case, the six existing slots are enough to construct both numbers in a historically correct manner!

Some photographic evidence below. It can be observed that for none of the aircraft, it's possible to accurately show both tail and buzz numbers with IL2's current system, while for all but one it would be possible with my proposed system.

• S/N 49-0689, Tail 9689, Buzz FT-689
• S/N 49-0435 Tail 9435, Buzz FT-435
• S/N 49-0853, Tail 9853, Buzz FT-853
• S/N 49-0530 Tail 9530, Buzz FT-530
• S/N 48-5456, Tail 485456, Buzz FT-456
• S/N 49-0481 Tail 9481, Buzz FT-481
• S/N 49-0508 Tail 9508, Buzz FT-508
• S/N 49-0510 Tail 9510, Buzz FT-510
• S/N 49-0511 Tail 9511, Buzz FT-511
• S/N 47-0576 Tail 7576, Buzz FT-576

Spoiler

 

 

Edited July 22 by AEthelraedUnraed

[Horna]

- Objects and targets sunk in terrain.

[Jade_Monkey]

When you lose the wing tip in the F84 Thunderjet, there is a remainng glass for the Nav ligts that does not fall and stays floating around in the original location as if you still had the wing.

[LukeFF]

10 hours ago, Mark_Krieger said:

Gunsight button cage/uncage animation in F-51D doesn't work since patch 0.003.

I see no issue here. Make sure you're not looking at the microphone button.

[=FB=VikS]

8 часов назад, AEthelraedUnraed сказал:

The tail section is meant to show the last three digits, not the first 

but it is as it now?

this is what we set for airplane in pre-flight:

this is how it looks in in flight:

?

PS: the last digit on the body - is intended to be for "doubles" in Korea - so its correct use in career (or lets say - historical way)  is to set there a letter, not number - but we decided to let ppl set there a numbers too - just for the longer body number - if someone whants it (not for career - just for personal use or such).

Edited July 22 by =FB=VikS

[papaz]

F-51D career bug, after an AI only run mission (5th in total). This error message popped up, resulting in getting stuck on the debrief screen.
It also popped up after the mission before, but at least let me leave the screen. Had to ALT+F4.

Sidenote: Mig-15 intercepted the flight on the first sorties (they aren't doing much), Yak-9 during the later AI-only missions (they did put up a fight).

Edit: My progress was saved after force-quitting. I've found another bug, I'm not getting 'award points' to use, even though in the news feed it says that I received several of them.

Edited July 22 by papaz
Further detailing of the problem and new foundings.

[Aapje]

2 hours ago, =FB=VikS said:

PS: the last digit on the body - is intended to be for "doubles" in Korea - so its correct use in career (or lets say - historical way)  is to set there a letter, not number - but we decided to let ppl set there a numbers too - just for the longer body number - if someone whants it (not for career - just for personal use or such).

Did you look at the hidden content in @AEthelraedUnraed's post? He provided a lot of pictures with the short number on the body and the full number on the tail. If I search for pictures of Korean war planes, I see the same pattern.

[Viking1]

Time Skip ahead in CAREER when offered I choose to jump 20km from base.. but it never seems to work.

I have moved some weak pilots to RESERVE. When I attempted to move one back to active duty just now nothing happened. The screen goes pale but nothing happens. I exited CAREER and restarted to try again. Same thing. 

Also on returning from last CAS mission after choosing the time jump when I came out of warp I noticed a whole squadron of friendlies coming my way in the distance. SO they were heading back toward battle area. Turns out it was MY squadron. Nice of them to turn around and come for me, but not very likely.

v 003

Edited July 22 by Viking1

[Valis]

Career mission briefing is in metric only.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

15 hours ago, =FB=VikS said:

but it is as it now?

No, it isn't. In your screenshot, the tail number is "123". That's three digits. F-80s never had a 3-digit tail number, it was always either 4 or 6 digits.

Your remark about the "A" is more interesting than you might think. The use of the A (or sometimes even B) to differentiate between aircraft that had the last 3 serial number digits, is well documented. However, your comment has made me realise that I've never actually seen an F-80 with this additional A.

Looking at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lockheed_P-80_Shooting_Star_by_serial_number there is only one conflict (45-8435 and 49-435). It can be seen that both aircraft used the identical buzz number FT-435 at the same time (both photographs are from mid-1954). According to a list of serial numbers, furthermore 49-526, 49-696, 49-689, 49-526, 49-511, 49-510, 49-508, 49-507, 49-481, 49-435, 49-423, 47-576 and 47-545 all have serial number conflicts yet can be seen to not have an A appended to the buzz number.

I don't want to completely dismiss the possibility that there were some aircraft that did in fact have the A. However, in contrast with e.g. the F-84, it doesn't seem to have been commonplace for the F-80. Therefore, having the extra slot at the buzz number instead of at the tail, makes it impossible to have correct tail numbers on any F-80 in exchange for making it possible to add the "A", which may or may not been actually used and in any case wasn't very widespread. Therefore, I still think that moving the first number slot to the tail number is the preferred course of action.

There is an alternative though. As you can see from the attached list of serial numbers, about 70% of all F-80Cs were produced in 1949, so have a 9 as the leading digit of the tail number. I think it would be acceptable to just "hardcode" the 9 into the F-80's skins. That way, you could at least have historically correct tail numbers for the majority of all F-80s while still enabling the additional A.

Edited July 23 by AEthelraedUnraed

[Echo-2]

SP career mission.

[Ludl0w]

Campaign mode can break when editing aircraft numbers. Going through pilot cards and editing an aircraft number can result in the game crashing to desktop. After this, any attempt to open career from main menu will result in crashing to desktop, rendering career broken. Only fix is to go to game data/careers folder and manually delete the problem career.

V 003

[LukeFF]

On 7/22/2026 at 5:39 AM, Jade_Monkey said:

When you lose the wing tip in the F84 Thunderjet, there is a remainng glass for the Nav ligts that does not fall and stays floating around in the original location as if you still had the wing.

Was this the result of battle damage, presumably? Our team is having problems reproducing the issue.

[Jade_Monkey]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

Was this the result of battle damage, presumably? Our team is having problems reproducing the issue.

1. Droptank set on fire by flak, and then later jettisoned by me. The fire damaged the wing tip but did not rip yet.
2. A minute or so later, doing some higher G maneuvers, the fire-damaged wingtip ended up being ripped off due to the high G forces. 

Edited July 23 by Jade_Monkey

[=FB=VikS]

7 часов назад, AEthelraedUnraed сказал:

No, it isn't. In your screenshot, the tail number is "123". That's three digits. F-80s never had a 3-digit tail number, it was always either 4 or 6 digits.

i mean - last 3x digits of searial numbers = buzz number.
As about serial number - its cause we cant do all the numbers we whant - as we have a limit for 8 digits maximum  (all of them - tail serials - is only can be repeated) - so its about compromise here (or we have correct Buzz letters and number - or serial one - so we had to choose here), and so we only can repeat 3x last digit of a serial number. Its done this way on all airplane right now - so to keep it as a same system for all airplanes.

PS: 

PPS: yes - we possibly can add some blank skins for career a bit later with numbers coupled with default colours for squadrons also (but no promises here) - so to have pre-drawn first digits of serials and unic squad colorings (with stripes, tail markings and such).

Edited July 23 by =FB=VikS

[LukeFF]

5 hours ago, Ludl0w said:

Campaign mode can break when editing aircraft numbers. Going through pilot cards and editing an aircraft number can result in the game crashing to desktop. After this, any attempt to open career from main menu will result in crashing to desktop, rendering career broken. Only fix is to go to game data/careers folder and manually delete the problem career.

V 003

Could you possibly send over the database file for your career? It's in the the  /game/Data/career folder. The name of it will be the name of your pilot for that career. 

[Levadas]

Fire is missing in 3rd person view. Files is more than 5 MB, so attached via archive.

2026_7_23__14_26_14.rar

[papaz]

Air kills are not recorded on the commander stat screen.

[Mark_Krieger]

Another thing that happens in the 12th fighter-bomber career is that some planes "disappear" over time. At the logistics sections it appears like if I already have 24 but in the squadron I have only 19 and I cannot ask for more.

Edited July 23 by Mark_Krieger

[Jorri]

I did a group transfer mission in the task manager with 4 F-80's. 
 

it took quite a while for all of them to take off and and form up, which didn't really work with the limited fuel quantity the mission assigned to me by default. 
 

Then I landed, asking permission through the command menu first. My pilot then instructed the flight to break off and land on their own. 
 

I landed first, but the others never proceedes to land. They just kept circling overhead. 

Edited July 23 by Jorri

[AEthelraedUnraed]

4 hours ago, =FB=VikS said:

i mean - last 3x digits of searial numbers = buzz number.
As about serial number - its cause we cant do all the numbers we whant - as we have a limit for 8 digits maximum  (all of them - tail serials - is only can be repeated) - so its about compromise here (or we have correct Buzz letters and number - or serial one - so we had to choose here), and so we only can repeat 3x last digit of a serial number. Its done this way on all airplane right now - so to keep it as a same system for all airplanes.

PS: 

Well, that photo proves that the A was in fact used on the F-80. Although the photos I posted earlier seem to suggest it may not have been as widespread as with other types, and was certainly not used for every serial conflict. Personally, I'd still go for an extra slot for the tail number rather than the "A" slot since that at least enables historical markings for a majority of aircraft, but in the end it's a compromise either way 🙂. PS. I think you must mean a maximum of 7 digits? That's what the F-80 has at the moment, so if the system supports 8 digits then there doesn't need to be any compromise since the extra tail number digit would bring it to 8 (e.g. FT-9123A is 8 characters).

4 hours ago, =FB=VikS said:

PPS: yes - we possibly can add some blank skins for career a bit later with numbers coupled with default colours for squadrons also (but no promises here) - so to have pre-drawn first digits of serials and unic squad colorings (with stripes, tail markings and such).

That would be wonderful. Yes, some blank squadron markings would be welcome, even more so if they'd add a first serial digit 🙂

[Ludl0w]

3 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Could you possibly send over the database file for your career?

Yes I can! One of the broken career files is attached to this reply in a .zip file:

Career.zip